If Only Moms & Dads Could Go to Their Own Funerals

 

I went to a beautiful funeral yesterday of a woman gone far too soon.  Even at 81, people can be considered gone far too soon.  She had one of those zestful spirits that everyone wanted to be around forever, and frankly, she just seemed like she had the will to do it, no matter what ill may fall upon her. 

I hadn't seen Margie in a long time.  She was the mom of my college boyfriend.  I have always continued to adore her from afar, and his entire family, including his beloved wife. I'm always thrilled when our paths cross, and am so grateful for Facebook.  But, I didn't see Margie often over the years.  And yet she left a deep, lasting impression on me: her quick smile + laugh, her wry wit, and the way she teased me, a combo like no other - with brains + heart, and in a way that I somehow appreciated (even though I seem to have an only child allergy to teasing).  

The first thing I thought when I heard she was gone was that she must have been grateful near the end that each and every one of her kids carry her most precious attributes into the future.  They are all quick to smile, laugh, and share her humor.  Each and every one of them is funny.  They carry her forward in all the very best ways.

Margie's daughter, Cecily, gave the moving and smart eulogy, which was mighty impressive as it was able to speak eloquently on behalf of all 6 kids, as if they had all taken part in its writing.  I couldn't help but think -- as we all do at funerals -- wow, she would have loved this and felt so very loved.

Even when they know we love them and we even get to tell them all the ways we loved them before they die, there's something specific about funerals that could really make a mom or dad proud.  This family lost their dad long ago but I have a fantasy that they were both floating Bewitched-style high up in the back of the church yesterday, thinking "Damn, we did good."

So, if you are a mom or a dad, even if you don't have the most harmonious relationship with your kid, just know that when push comes to shove you have passed on to them everything they need to be their best, and left out all the right stuff, even if that right stuff is something they need to pick up at a different venue down the line. 

And, hopefully you can imagine your funeral and in your mind's eye watch them rise to their highest selves to get through the terrible grief, and to fully honor you.  Because damn if it isn't always what happens.  People rise to the occasion.  A lot of us learned that from our parents.  So, all you moms and dads please know that you are loved and appreciated far beyond your wildest dreams.

Open Sesame: A Way of Life

Lookie, lookie here to open that door:  Huffington Post "Open Sesame" Article

Superhero Cooks Unite: We Bow to Scott Conant!

 

I doubled the recipe and got 3 jars like this

 

 

I usually post recipes on my Lazy Woman blog.  Most are "lazy" meaning less stress with a delicious result.   I have actually posted about this recipe on that blog because it's such an extraordinary and perfect recipe.  But it's not LAZY actually.  In fact, as I made this the other night I realized that it's really a superhero recipe.    Scott Conant is a superhero chef.  This is his recipe (see story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7BeGj38J4k). And I felt like a superhero when I was making it.

 

If you LOVE cooking this is an incredibly fun adventure.  You get to cut, prep, seed with your hands, score, blanch, sautee, simmer, boil, mash, strain, drizzle, and even give and ice bath!  I always feel like I'm in a chemistry lab when I make this pasta.  It is wondrous fun!

 

I decided to make the sauce because I'm making lasagna (as well as this sauce over pasta) for a dinner party tomorrow and decided I really wanted to try this sauce in a lasagna.  I will add another post with that recipe and photos later.

 

You get to sautee garlic and basil in olive oil until it's just the right level of infused:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Straining the extra left over tomato debris...

 



 

 

I'm ashamed to say that the Roma tomatoes at my normally spectacularly produce-d local store were not great, but I bought them anyway due to time constraints, and really sort of as an experiment.  This sauce is fantastic -- different than if tomatoes were robust, but I could literally drink this sauce it's so good, even with the less than stellar tomatoes.  BUT I did have to use my immersion blender -- which was super fun:

 

 

 

 



 

 My favorite part: drizzling the magical infused olive oil into the cooked tomatoes: 

 

 

Learn how to do this step-by-step:  http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2009/10/making-scarpetta-tomato-basil-spaghetti-scott-conant-scarpetta-meatpacking-district-nyce.html

 

UNSTUNG HERO: The Summer Shield for Every Active Superhero

I bought this at the end of last mosquito season, so I was excited to try it out tonight.  I'm sitting on the patio writing.  I was being regularly dive-bombed by the little bloodsuckers, but no more.

And, it smells really good - citrus + grass to my nose.  It does not in any way shape or form smell like citronella.

There may be other places to get it now but I ordered it online from Shen Beauty.

Highly recommend.

Don't Let Your Shadow Self Drive the Car: It's Probably Not 16!

As I typed the word shadow above, a crow landed right outside the patio door!  I always think of crows as a playful shadow reminder.  This one was particularly shiny and elegant, strutting his dark shadowy self.  He then flitted over to the tree where two endlessly-chasing-each-other squirrels were un-phased by his presence only inches away.  The shadow and the light in a lovely dance.  

I wish it were always that way inside me.  The little kid in me wants to say "Can't I always be the squirrel? Can't we just play?"  Yet those shadowy crows are nestled inside us right next to the light and playful squirrels.  The bullying, domineering, sometimes attacking crow is inside me, as is the hilarious, jokester squirrel.  But it always seems like way more fun to deal with light than shadow.  Recently, though, I'm finding the hugest relief in dealing head on with those shadows. 

If we don't acknowledge that the shadow is there, it will silently, stealthily, move into position behind the steering wheel of our car of life and start driving, shoving the light over into the passenger seat without even being noticed until he crashes the car.    That happened to me last week -- FEAR drove my car right into the FLU.

After a few months of dealing with buying a house and getting settled, I have been delving back into rewrites of my book, getting comments from friends, strangers and writer's groups.  Soon my head was spinning from the feedback and I was so afraid I had to check out.  Perfect solution: stomach flu.  It allowed for unabashed complete check-out.

Once I figured out I let the shadow drive me into a wall, I got out of the car, looked through the debris and pulled that shadow self out from behind the wheel.  Who was she and why was she so afraid?   We had a good chat and I realized she was the little girl who felt incredibly unsafe when my parents divorced.  I had never realized that I felt "unsafe" during that transition time.   I didn't want to be alone with my mom who I sensed, even at that tender age, was not completely stable.  Nor did I want to be alone with my dad, because he wasn't a mom.  Neither option was completely safe, each held its own sense of danger.  As a 53 year old adult, this transition time with my book was feeling equally unsafe, and that that shadow self who was born when I was 7 years old, was crying out in fear.  I'm glad we got to talk.  Of course, as soon as we did, I was on the road to swift healing.

Doing shadow work takes far less effort than pretending the shadow isn't driving you into walls.  The more you do it, the faster you get back into the driver's seat.  I can't more highly recommend Debbie Ford's work which I've been practicing now for over 4 years.   I mention it a lot in this very fun interview I did with Ted Lyde who is himself very adept at the brave work of looking at his own shadows while making us laugh about the whole game of life.   

His interview with me:
Learning Not to Swear with Ted Lyde

The Never Never Jar

Today a friend shared on Facebook a "never" she has that was a "never" I actually had until a couple months ago.  It seemed like every turn I made I would run into someone who was having a glorious experience with Bulletproof Coffee or "Butter Coffee." 

I have had a lifelong disgust of butter, mayonnaise or anything oily.  One my favorite
"excellent daddy" stories was about the time he took my 7 year old "boyfriend" and I out to lunch.   Patrick ordered a tuna sandwich. I wanted to be like him but I hated mayonnaise so I ordered a tuna sandwich with no mayonnaise.  I vividly remember the waitress being dumbfounded and a conversation with my dad ensuing with instructions to literally take some tuna out of a can and slap it on some bread.

She came back -- after a good long while, of course -- and my dad saw my eyes swell with tears after I took my first bite.  He looked down and saw we had been served the wrong sandwiches.  I was too embarrassed to say anything in front of Patrick, of course.  I contend that my dad waited waaaaaaaay too long (and remember full on tears silently streaming down my face) to come to our aid, but he always maintained that he immediately remedied the situation for fear we might both projectile vomit on him.

My tolerance for butter and mayo has, of course, grown.  But I still only use scants of each in any culinary situation.  I got a little sick to my stomach even imagining butter coffee in my mouth the first time I heard about it.   But, one day a couple months ago when yet another good friend was extolling the virtues of her new discovery I heard myself speak exactly like a 7 year old about how I would never try it, that I didn't NEED to try it, it wasn't for me, etc. 

Just hearing that petulant voice made me realize I should possibly push through it and try.  The next day I bought the damn butter, and the coconut oil, and soon found myself flicking a pat of butter into a blender.  I had to psych myself up for the first sip, and even the next, but eventually I realized my disgust was all in my head, that really it just tastes like frothy coffee with heavy cream, which makes sense: cream being the precursor to butter, after all!

I actually gave it a shot for a month and came away with the biggest win: that the Brain Octane (highly purified coconut oil by the Bulletproof Coffee company) was my ticket to my happiness. It unequivocally cured the brain fog caused by hormone fluctuations.  Gone!

So I got something great out of pushing against a never.  That being said, I can't tell you how happy I am that I don't have to touch butter every morning.  Ew.

We all have to push through our "nevers" from time to time.  I have heard parents speak of theirs on many occasions.  But I am keenly aware that as I get older I can be even more convincing - to myself and others -- and firmly entrenched in my nevers.  Friends will concur "Good idea, Bridget, you probably should NOT ever do that again." 

So, I've decided to up my elasticity game.  I have some lasting body elasticity issues due to a running injury, so I've recently increased my yoga game.  Now I'm going to up my inner elasticity game too. 

I made a NEVER JAR so I can stay conscious of how often I create hard edges and build walls with my nevers.  Every time I come against a never, I'll write it down and throw it in the jar.  I will try to bust through one every once in a while because it does appear that every time I do bust through a never (never run a marathon, never buy a house without a second income, never try Bullet Coffee, etc.) something pretty amazing comes out of the mix.

I will confess that one of things in my jar is never dating a Virgo again.  It didn't turn out splendidly all 4 times I've done it and I'm pretty fricking firmly entrenched (aka Aries bullheaded entrenched) in this never.  Watch me meet another charming Virgo in the near future just to test my never resilience.  I shall pray for some heart elasticity if that occurs!

Everything Has Its Place

 

Perfect Place for Wisteria I'm Planting in Honor of My Friend Jim Hamilton

 

I’ve been unequivocally blessed in the housing department since I moved away from home when I was 18.  The year I went to Berkeley, many California residents didn’t get into dorms.  The year I moved to Paris there was a bizarre housing crisis.  New York is always New York.  Yet in even these most extreme cases, even though it sometimes took a while, I miraculously ended up in the most beautiful, convenient spots. 

My homes have been of various sizes, some super tiny (first place in NY, but lovely setting so I didn’t care) and some huge (a mansion I rattled around in with sheer glee), but I have never fit a home so perfectly as the one I just bought.  It’s a glove of a house, not too small, not too big.  For Goldilocks and her two furry bears, it fits just right.

The internal cheer that I keep hearing myself repeat silently to myself as I continue to get settled is “Everything has its place.”  There’s a drawer for the hummingbird food.  There’s a perfectly sized and placed drawer for baggies.  The bijillion cooking and/or eating utensils that I have amassed (and proclaim to be over-the-top by friends) also each have a perfectly situated spot.  The furry bear girls are serene and happy here too.  They have all their perfect happy places too.

My heart is happy right where it is too.  Many times a day I thank my lucky stars, even when I’m in the middle of the crisis.  Yep, even that has its perfect place because crises – whether mine or that of a friend that needs my attention – makes me connect with people in a different way, makes me appreciate.

I’m starting to get that this phrase I found myself repeating throughout my days as I’ve been doing my necessary nestling is becoming a new mantra for me: “everything has its place” brings me delightfully into the present, and reminds me to be grateful. 

It’s not about stuff.  It’s about being here right now in this perfect spot: even as I write this, overtired, having dealt with difficult news today, working too late, many more tasks ahead of me before bed.  All of it is perfectly placed.  With a furry bear girl snuggling on either side of me, it’s hard to doubt the perfection.  Even in the pushing through, there is perfection.

Sometimes “be here now” is too much for me to take on.  I aspire to it daily, but I sometimes think only Eckhart Tolle and a few others have that one down.   I’ll continue to strive, but this new mantra has the training wheels I currently need, perfectly placed until they no longer serve me.